AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But Graeson, of course, followed her. Ever the persistent chaser. "What are you talking about?"
She paddled toward the shore. With each stroke, her choices became murkier. "Now who is playing who for the fool,Gray?”
"Don't say my name like that," he bit back.
She smirked. His anger only fueled her. Closing her eyes as she floated under the sun, Kallie asked, "Like what,Gray?"
"Like we're not friends."
Kallie chuckled. "But we're not."
The tension in the air became taught.
"I suppose not anymore," Graeson said.
After a moment passed, Kallie relaxed, believing Graeson had given up on the conversation.
The past was the past, Kallie reminded herself. She was a different person now. And for better or for worse, she couldn't change that.
Then Graeson broke the silence, "It meant something to me, you know." Her eyes flew open and her peddling slowed, unsure of what to do with those words. "Thought you should know that much, at least," he added.
Hesitating, she flipped over and found Graeson just a few feet away. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Pretend like you care."
"I've never pretended." He swam closer to her but paused when he was an arm's reach away. "Never with you."
"You don't even know me," Kallie countered, treading water in place.
"Kal, I've known you my whole life. And I know it might sound weird to you because either the trauma of that night altered your memory or something else did." A water droplet raced down the side of his face near his scar, and Kallie watched it as it slid down his throat and into the water. "But I never stopped thinking about you."
She swallowed.
"My biggest regret in life was losing you that night. You were never—this wasn't how our life was supposed to go," Graeson said.
"And how was it supposed to go?" her whole body shook, her muscles growing tired, yet her voice remained steady.
He shook his head, then the water pushed them closer. They were now only a foot apart and she did not dare to speak.
"There wasn't supposed to be all of this pain between us. All of this," he motioned toward the air between them, "space."
She looked into his eyes and saw the years of sorrow and searching within them. Why had he waited for her?
He was only a couple of years older than her, maybe two or three. They were children when they had known each other. The memories of which were still buried in her mind as if a layer of frosted glass covered them, blocking them from her view. She did not know how she felt toward him when she was a child. But whether she remembered or not, either way, it did not matter.
She had seen the children in the palace chase each other, turn red when a parent asked them about a friend. And while those feelings could be true and real, they were the feelings of a child. When the world was new and fresh, when the woes and heartbreaks of life had not yet been seen.
Years later, those feelings mattered little.
Right?
Despite knowing that, she asked, "If we take this step, what's to say there won't be more pain?"
Graeson scanned her face. When he spoke, his voice was solid, "I would never hurt you, Kallie."
By his voice and the look in his eyes, she knew he was telling the truth. But he wasn't the one she was worried about, the scar a clear reminder on his face. She had caused that. King Domitius was afterher.And who knows how he would react now.
